


Bucking Tradition

by der_tanzer



Series: Protective Custody [26]
Category: Riptide (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-19
Updated: 2011-02-19
Packaged: 2017-10-15 18:30:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/163657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/der_tanzer/pseuds/der_tanzer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Murray has an announcement. Nick and Cody are less than thrilled.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bucking Tradition

“You’re what?” Nick cried, his expression so comically surprised that even Cody had to laugh. He leaned across the table and squeezed Nick’s arm gently, still trying to stifle his own grin.

“We’re getting married,” Murray repeated. “And keep your voice down. Ted’s napping.”

For reasons Murray didn’t quite understand, that killed Cody’s grin in a flash. His eyes met Nick’s and Nick shook his head.

“What? Guys, why—why aren’t you happy for me? I—I thought, since I’m living here and everything, it was kind of—normal.”

“It is,” Nick said, laying his hand over Cody’s and squeezing back. “Or it would be if you were allowed to _get_ married. In case you hadn’t noticed, Boz, you’re both men.”

“Yeah, I’d noticed that, Nick. But thank you for pointing it out. It’s not going to be legal, of course. But we thought it would be fun to have a big party with all our friends and family,” he added hopefully, “and exchange vows in front of a priest and everything.”

“That’s—Murray, when did you come up with that?” Cody asked softly. “Is it just because of Steve’s wedding?”

“No,” he said, surprised. “Well, I admit we—we hadn’t really thought about it as a viable lifestyle until we met Julie’s brother and his husband. They offered us the use of the house up there, but we said no, we didn’t need a public show just for you guys and my family. But it was really because we didn’t want to get married and then not be able to live together. Now that we can, we want to do it right. You’ll come, won’t you?”

“Sure,” Nick said, seeing the futility of arguing this rationally. But he wasn’t totally convinced. Cody wasn’t convinced at all.

“Murray, forgive me for not getting this, but—but I don’t get it. Ted’s only been out of the hospital for a couple days and you’ve already decided to make this major life change. Are you sure you’re not just reacting to the relief of, you know, not losing him? Don’t you want to give it a little time and make sure you really want to make this commitment?”

“Of course I’m sure. We’ve been together for years now, Cody. The commitment was made a long time ago.” His expression went still and both of his friends wondered just when that was. They had accepted it only when Murray moved into Ted’s house, but maybe he meant something else. Then he shook his head and the moment passed. “We made our commitment, with jewelry and everything. This is just the party.”

“But it’s more than that,” Cody said patiently. “It might not be legal, but if you involve a priest you’re going to feel the full force of moral obligation. It’s really going to be permanent.”

“Yes, but it is now. I don’t understand the difference.”

“The difference,” Nick said carefully, “is that if you have an actual wedding and something happens, if you’re not together forever, it’s going to hurt a lot worse. Worse than just being friends or lovers, even worse than living together. That final bond, man, that’s going to rip your guts out.”

“Well, yes, I can see how it would,” he said, as if they were explaining to him the concept of opening a valve to achieve running water. “But what’s going to happen? He won’t leave me, if that’s what you’re thinking. This is for real, guys. I thought you knew that.”

“Well,” Nick said, still choosing his words with care, “we hope that’s the case. But—we’re your friends, Boz, and we don’t want to see you get hurt like that, ever. After you take that last step, man, there’s no going back. You’re _married_ , whether the law recognizes it or not. You’ll know in your heart that everything’s changed and it would kill you to lose him then.”

“Really?” Murray asked quietly. “Is that why you two never got married?”

Nick turned to Cody, as he always did when cornered, and saw his own feelings reflected in his lover’s eyes.

“We never felt the need to make a public statement,” Nick said with great dignity.

“I see. So you’ve never been married, either of you, and you don’t plan on being, but you’re going to sit here and lecture me about it? You’re going to tell me about commitment and heartbreak? No,” he answered himself. “I don’t think so. You can bring up the past, how many times we made mistakes and broke up, but that just proves my point. No one knows better than we do how badly we need to be together. I’m not stupid, you know. I know everything that you do, and more, and I’d think that if I decided this was the right thing to do, you could trust my judgment.”

“We—we do,” Cody said, almost convincingly.

“Right. You don’t trust anything about this, do you? You still think I’m going to need rescuing, right?”

“Well, it has been known to happen,” Nick remarked.

“But you haven’t always been the one to do it, have you?” That hurt. Murray could see it as soon as the words were spoken, and he regretted them. He drew a deep breath, put his elbows on the table, and rested his chin in his hands. “You’ve seen us stand by each other through a lot of awful things. You have to believe that it can’t get worse, right? And that, if it somehow does, we’ll be able to get through it.”

“You think it can’t get worse?” Nick asked and Cody kicked him under the table. Hard.

“Do you want proof?” he asked quietly, still leaning on his hands. His expression was more tired than frightened, but his eyes shone with tears.

“Murray…”

“No, Nick, you want proof,” he repeated, no longer asking a question. “I’ll tell you something you didn’t know. My six month HIV test? It was positive. I went right back and had another blood draw the day after I got the results. I told you I was sick and staying home in bed while you worked a case, and Ted took me to the doctor. The lab gave me priority because it was a retest, but it was still two weeks before I got the results. It was negative, of course, but those two weeks were the worst of my life. I thought I’d been handed a death sentence.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Cody asked, his expression pitifully stunned. “We were here the whole time and you—you never said a word.”

“I was scared. I just couldn’t face your reactions—how you’d look at me and—and how much it would hurt you. But Ted just—took it in stride. Like he does everything. He—he insisted we make love every day, and when I was at the boat and couldn’t sleep, I’d call him and he’d talk to me all night.

“I guess I should have told you, for your own sake. If I’d gotten hurt—” He paused and wiped his eyes with his fingertips, his hands barely moving under his chin. “That was why I stopped cooking, remember? I said I was too tired whenever it was my turn and we had pizza or something, but I was really afraid of cutting myself. I went without shaving rather than borrow a razor. It was the most scared I’ve ever been, and the idea of telling you was one of the worst parts.”

“But—but _why_?” Cody asked again. It was obvious that he was deeply hurt, but it was still better than Nick’s stony silence.

“I was afraid you’d want me to leave. And even if you didn’t _say_ so, you might be thinking it. I didn’t want to always be wondering if you still liked me, or if you were—uncomfortable—having me around. I needed to know for sure that there was something to be scared of before I put the burden on you.”

“But you were okay having sex with Quinlan? You wouldn’t chop the lettuce for our salad, but you could keep exchanging bodily fluids with him?” Nick asked with surprising gentleness.

“We weren’t exchanging—that is—I was very—you know—careful. But that wasn’t the point. I wasn’t dependent on him. I could tell him because he was the one with me for all the tests, the one who always held my hand when I opened the envelopes, and if he suddenly changed his mind, he couldn’t force me out of my home.”

“Murray, we wouldn’t _do_ that,” Cody said, reaching out to him with an unconscious plea. Murray took his hand and squeezed it as he nodded.

“I know that now, but I was so _scared_. After six months, it was like the end of all my fragile hope. I—I would have told you if the second one had come back positive. I wouldn’t have risked your health, or—or asked you to take care of me. But when it was negative, I just wanted to forget the whole thing.”

“So, you were afraid _we’d_ reject you, but not that Ted might?” Nick asked. Murray nodded miserably and he went on. “I’m not saying you should trust us _more_ than you do him, but I’d thought we’d earned at least _as_ much.”

“You have. It’s just—it’s not _about_ you. It’s about how scared and hurt I was, and Ted’s incredible supportiveness. I thought I was doomed. I’d lose my insurance, I wouldn’t be able to get work, I could have lost my home—even if you didn’t want me to leave, the homeowner’s association might have—I was really close to just giving up. I tried to talk him into separating while we waited for the second test but he kept taking me to bed instead. He just wouldn’t let go for a minute. You know, we’ve made other statements of trust and commitment since then—I don’t think it will ever stop getting deeper—but that was when I knew we were bonded for life. When he still wanted me after he saw that letter.”

“Murray, you know we wouldn’t have rejected you,” Cody said softly, “and if the homeowner’s association didn’t like it, we’d have moved. You have to know that. We’d have protected you forever if it came to that.”

“I know, Cody. Really, I do. But, as I said before, it wasn't about you. _Please_ don’t take the most difficult admission of my life and make it about you. This is about me and Ted and how I know that he would never leave me. Not for any reason.”

“All right, Murray, we accept that,” Nick said. They could discuss it all day and the central points would never change. “But that isn’t the only thing that could separate you. He is a lot older than you are, you know.”

“Everybody dies, Nick. If that was a good excuse for not getting married, no one would do it.”

They sat there in silence for a moment, Nick and Cody holding hands, Murray holding Cody’s and resting his chin in his other palm. There seemed to be only one thing left to say. After a while, Nick said it.

“So, where’re you registered?”

They laughed together, the musical, sincere laughter that everyone who knew them associated with the three best friends, and then Ted was calling for Murray from the bedroom.

“Put my crutches out of reach again,” Ted griped when Murray appeared.

“That wasn’t an accident,” Murray grinned. Ted was sitting up, trying to get his left leg off the bed, and if his crutches had been anywhere near, he might have already been struggling to his feet. “Hold on, Lieutenant,” he said, still smiling. He climbed onto the bed on his knees and helped Ted swing his bandaged leg around and set his foot on the floor.

“Fuck,” he whispered. It still hurt like a mother, but Ted was trying hard not to take his pills. He really believed that not being stoned during his recovery would get him back to work sooner.

“Nick and Cody are here,” Murray said, hopping off the bed to get the crutches from beside the door. “Do you want to come visit with us? We’re talking about the wedding.”

“Yeah? What’d they say when you told ‘em?” He wrapped his arms around Murray’s neck and pulled himself up on his good right leg. Murray held onto him, providing more support than strength, but Ted was strong enough on his own. All he needed was a post to grab onto and someone to hand him his crutches so he wouldn’t have to try and bend down.

“They were a little bit—concerned. I—I told them about the HIV scare. They weren’t quite as impressed as I’d hoped, but it’s okay. I didn’t get a chance to ask them, though.”

“We’ll do it together. It’ll be fine. But first, I gotta hit the head.”

Murray opened the bedroom door for him and he made his way to the bathroom. If he’d needed help, he would have asked Murray to wait outside. But he didn’t, so Murray went to get his friends from the kitchen. They were all seated in the living room and the pizza had been ordered when Ted came out. Murray got up from the sofa and helped him sit down in his place. He was happy to sit on the floor and lean against Ted’s good knee, listening to his three favorite people make idle conversation.

They didn’t get down to business again until the pizza came. By then, everyone seemed to have gotten comfortable with the idea of the wedding, and when Cody asked about the details it was the opening Murray had been waiting for.

“Now that you’re happy for us,” he said with a teasing smile, “I want to ask you both if you’ll stand up with us at the ceremony. We haven’t figured out exactly how it would work, since men are supposed to stand by the groom and women by the bride, but no matter how it ends up looking, we knew we wanted to ask you first.”

“Really?” Cody asked, surprised. “After all that, all the things we said, you want us to—to be, what, your groomsmen? Wow, Murray. That’s awfully big of you.”

“Why? I love you guys—you’re my best friends. I was always going to ask you, no matter who I married. It’s just more complicated now,” he added, frowning thoughtfully, “without bridesmaids.”

“So it’ll be an all-guy wedding party,” Ted shrugged. “Right? You two are gonna say yes, aren’t you?”

“Yes, of course we’ll do it,” Nick said, looking both pleased and mildly embarrassed.

“I wouldn’t mind that,” Murray said, still on the all-guy remark. “But you should have Steve beside you, Ted, and will he want to walk up to the altar with a man? And what about Melba? She’d feel so left out.”

“Baby, we’re already bucking tradition by doing it at all. You can put whoever you want up there.”

“But it wouldn’t look right,” he said, his brow furrowed in puzzlement.

“Are you going to exchange rings?” Cody asked, trying to break his concentration. Otherwise, Murray would obsess over it all night.

“Maybe. I’d like to,” Murray said, equally pleased with the new topic. “We could wear them on chains around our necks where no one would see.”

“But the whole point is to show that you’re taken,” Cody reminded him.

“Yes, but people will ask by whom. Or they will if they haven’t already guessed. It would be enough for me to have it and wear it in private, but even then, I don’t need it. I have my bracelet, which is even better. Kind of like a handcuff,” he added with a sly little grin.

“You and your handcuffs,” Ted said fondly.

“Okay, that’s too much information there,” Nick said, holding his hands up in self-defense.

“Oh, like you’re surprised. Those wrists were made for cuffing, and if you say you never thought about it, I’ll call you a liar.”

Nick and Cody exchanged a guilty look and both blushed. They’d never considered actually having sex with Murray, but there were plenty of times they’d laid in bed and speculated about those flexible wrists and long, slender fingers.

“Yeah, okay,” Nick shrugged. “So let’s talk about something else, huh?”

“Sure,” Murray said brightly. “When do you want to go for your tuxedo fittings?”


End file.
